


On The Way (Prompt #2)

by twowritehands



Series: Letterkenny Showdown 2018 [3]
Category: Letterkenny (TV)
Genre: Gen, Prompt Challenge, letterkenny showdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 09:59:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15638430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twowritehands/pseuds/twowritehands
Summary: Darry has a life changing moment in his van





	On The Way (Prompt #2)

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt#2 of the Letterkenny Showdown:
> 
> How Darry got the scar on his lip
> 
> :::
> 
> Who Will Be The Toughest Writer In Letterkenny???
> 
> You decide and let us know which prompt fill you like best by leaving g KUDOS.
> 
> The author that is best 2 out of 3 days is the champ!
> 
> :::
> 
> A/N: I haven't noticed a scar on Nathan Dales' lip so this is set post season 5

Within seconds, Darry began to perspire in the enclosed heat of his banged up old van. He right away began cranking the driver’s side window down, which was a time consuming chore that took a combination of applying pressure to the window pane while jiggling the crank as it was turned. The glass lowered in a stuttering,  jolting seesaw motion. More work than it was worth as only slightly cooler air wafted in from outside.

It took three tries and a dirty little promise to get the van engine to turn over, and then after he flicked the air conditioner on, he fished in the glovebox for a thin wedge of wood which he stuck in the floppy vent cover to keep the airflow aimed in the right direction.

Tepid air wafted out of the dash as Darry got his van in reverse, backed out of his parking spot beside Dan's old truck and pulled around to the front laneway of the farm. He had just rolled to a stop even with the house when Wayne stepped out, ready to go, and visibly slumped at the sight of the van.

He came to a firm stop, perfect parade rest except for the crossed arms. Darry hung an elbow out of his laboriously opened window and grinned at the sight of Wayne's stern pout.

“No, Darry. Not happening.”

“Your truck still has the old fence in it.” They had spent the morning replacing bad metal posts and twisted barbed wire from the back field. “Ain't no way we can fit the new supplies in that truck today.”

Wayne's exasperation dripped off every enunciated syllable, “Not if we take the old fence to the landfill, Darry. If we stop at the landfill before the store we will have plenty of room in my truck.”

“The landfill is clear across town from the store and I ain't going all over the damn place today. I done told you, Anik will be at the bus station in two hours, and we gotta be back with the supplies by then.” He wagged his eyebrows. “She promised to wear some super French lingerie for me.”

Wayne pivoted sharply and marched around the van. He flicked away his dart as he climbed in. The door squeaked horribly both on the swing out and the swing back in. The glass rattled when he slammed it.

“This shit box better get us there, Darry.” Wayne intoned as he folded his legs in the passengers space.

“She'll make it.”

“It better fucking get us there.” Wayne repeated through his pouty scowl.

“She will!”

“And it better get us back!”

“She'll perform.”

“Five bucks says we'll be towed home.”

“Deal.”

They shook on it. Darry reversed back onto the road and off they went in a puff of exhaust and a rattle bang squeal. The engine had been running long enough that the air conditioning had reached a desired temperature so when Darry stopped at a stop sign, he began the process of raising the same window he had lowered before.

Jiggling and turning the crank, he gripped the top edge of the glass and tugged upwards until there was enough to press his hand against it and push up as he rolled up. It went up as jerkily and crookedly as it came down.

“You really going to pick up Anik in this van, bud?”

Darry smiled over at Wayne. “She'll love it.”

“Will she now?”

 _“_ I bet you she'll giggle and say _eet’s soh yoo_ , and give me a smooch.”

“If she does,” Wayne drawled. “Marry her.”

Conversation fell away rather abruptly then, and they rode in silence for a bit. Wayne tried the radio, hit every buzzing fuzzy station before finding one clear enough to make out agricultural melodies and lyrics. But Darry hardly paid attention.

On an isolated part of a back road heading into town, the radio signal was too weak so Wayne twisted the knob. Darry chewed on his lip, still working on the same thought which had prompted the lull in conversation.

Marry Anik.

He kinda supposed he always thought he'd get married. Someday. And Anik sure was the best gal he ever knew, let alone called sweetie. The idea of a sexy, intelligent smart and strong wife like Anik was pleasant. And a French wife lent a certain amount of credit to a fella because everyone instantly knew the sex had to be good.

And, hoo boy,  it was good.

When it happened.  Which, okay, wasn't a lot because of the distance. And that one time he'd been too drunk to get it up. But it was good when it happened in-person, all three times. And it was also good when it happened on the phone almost every night.

Darry frowned, wriggled in his seat.

Anik, his wife….

These thoughts snapped, and the real world returned when Darry realized nothing was happening when he pressed the gas pedal. The van's engine had gone quiet and the van was rapidly losing momentum. The pedal went all the way to the floorboard and--nothing. The speedometer dropped like a rock until the van was coasting to a pathetically silent stop.

Darry pumped the gas pedal. Turned the key to the off position and back on again. But nothing happened. No lights in the dash. Not even a clicking sound.

He might as well be in the driver's seat of a rock on slightly out of line wheels.

Without a word,  Darry gave up trying to get her to start. The three of them--Darry, Wayne and the van--sat there in the lane with wind in the trees and nothing else moving.

Wayne sat with his hands neatly on his knees as only his head turned toward the drivers side. A glint shone in his sharp eye. “What's the problem, Darry?”

“Probably an easy fix,” Darry murmured and wrestled his way out of the sticky driver’s side door. The hood prop had long since vanished so he used a broom handle to hold it up. Wayne waited in the van for only a minute or two before getting out to have a look.

Darry fiddled with this and that, checked levels and tubes and tightened bolts but all of that was mostly just for show because he already knew somehow in his heart that she was dead. His van was dead.

He felt Wayne's astute gaze seeing right through his charade. Darry straightened and leaned back on the dented grill and silently handed over a fiver. Wayne took it and leaned beside him.

It was a moment of solidarity before calling for the tow. Maybe even a moment of silence.

It occured to Darry in an uncharacteristic flash of poetic insight that it was fitting somehow to lose his first girl on the way to get his last. He blurted that moronic thought out loud right as he had it, as was fitting for his relationship with Wayne who might pile on and occasionally give him a hard time but who truly wouldn't ever hold anything against him.

“Technically, you were on your way to the store.” Wayne responded with the tone of the harsh critic that was sometimes seated in his soul.

“I didn't mean _literally_ on my way, big shoots.”

Wayne frowned, and a beat or two stretched out before Wayne asked, “So, are you… are you saying you're falling in love or something?”

Darry shrugged and Wayne made no further comment. Arms crossed, he scowled at the ground. Darry had a sinking feeling. Somehow, he had expected the broach of this topic to be met with happiness.

They fell silent until Darry asked, “You brought it up first, so. Does that mean you think I oughta?”

“You oughta what?”

“Marry Anik.”

Wayne shrugged, which never happened.  “Sure, if you can talk her into it.”

Perplexed by his best pal's less than enthusiastic responses, Darry flared with resentment. “So you think she won't want to marry the likes of me?”

Frustrated, Wayne kicked off from the grill of the van and strode a short distance away into the grass and back to the white line,  “That's not what I said. I said only if you can get her to say yes.”

“And what else does that mean except that she might not want me fer a husband?”

“Well…  you two are worlds apart, aren't you?”

“We are not.”

“First of all, you don't speak French.  Second of all, you don't live in Quebec,  and third of all, she was all set to marry a different dude when you met, and she broke it off with said dude on the very same day that she proclaimed her love for you.”

Darry held up a finger per point, “First,  love has no language, second, she'd move here if I asked her, and third, I happen to think that the fact she left a fiance for me speaks to the profound nature of her feelings for me.”

“Yeah but… “ Wayne blinked and blinked again and his voice had that touch of smallness to it that reminded Darry vividly of when they were boys. “What if she asks you to move there?”

That hit Darry like a truck.

And then a truck hit the van.

Wayne would later tell Darry that he'd seen it coming around the bend in the road out of the corner of his eye, but there had been absolutely no time to warn Darry, who still sat against the nose of the van under the hood with his back to the danger.

For Darry it was the vague register of an on coming car sound, a gasp from Wayne, a squeal of tires on asphalt, WHAM and then pain.

Later it would be confirmed that the driver of the compact pickup truck had actually been well below the speed limit, due to the fact that he was on a donut spare tire. So when he slammed on his breaks, he slid into the van, which of course then lurched forward. The momentum scooped Darry up under the hood for a second and then sent him flying forward flat onto his face like a flipped flapjack.

For Darry it was as close to getting hit by a train as he ever wanted to get ever again. Everything hurt but nothing more so than his face which had broken his brain’s fall to the asphalt.

Wayne's strong hands grabbed him and hauled him over, arms encircled him. Outright cradled him.  The flat of his fingers tapped Darry's cheek. “Fuck, Darry. Darry! Are you okay? Fuck, bud, talk to me.”

Darry groaned and strangled on blood.  His nose was broken. And when he tried to speak he found out too late that his teeth were all the way through his bottom lip. He felt his flesh tear even more and a gush of hot blood made him choke and cough.

Ultimately the EMTs would declare him to have multiple abrasions and contusions, a broken nose,  a broken rib, a dislocated ankle and five stitches in his lower lip.

Wayne rode with him to the hospital.  Sat with him for the boring as hell yet still unnerving cat scans and MRIs. Explained what happened over and over again to cops who kept coming around to ask questions.

Wayne held a mirror up for Darry when Darry asked, and he got a look at himself. Blacked eyes. Tape on his nose. Purple and green bruises and red scratches on his cheekbone and jaw. And the white lacing of the stitches across the dark red and black gash on his lower lip.

“That's gonna be a fine scar,” Darry said, slightly slurred speech from numbing medication and the pull of the stitches keeping his lips from moving right.

“It'll be a beauty fer sure.”

“Hey Wayne?”

“Yeah bud?”

“When we tell the story to people, can we say I was fixing her up when it happened? Like that she was on her feet and ready to go, as opposed to me having admitted defeat?”

“You wannaknowwhat, super shoots, I'm going to agree to that. Because yer my best pal in the world and for too fuckin long I was afraid you were as dead in the water as that shit box was.” His voice strained and just almost broke.

“Awe,” Darry preened under the warm fuzzies that he could still feel under the pain medication. “I love you too, good buddy.”

Whatever the hell Darry expected, he definitely didn't expect Wayne to blush and turn away. _What_?

Anik arrived right then, having been picked up by a helpful Katy.  She was a stunning ray of angelic beauty in the drab hospital room. Breathtaking. Eyes only for him. She devoured Darry's attention. She cried out in sympathy and smooched him on the not sore places and fawned over him in French. Wayne slipped away with a graceful exit, and with the bed curtain drawn, Darry got a peek of that super fancy French lingerie.

Over the next several weeks, Darry healed and all the while basked in the relative glory of a man who only barely escaped the clutches of death (after putting himself in harm's way by not being smart enough to roll the van to the shoulder of the road before _successfully_ getting her running again.) His lip healed into a badass scar that added character to his face.

Anik extended her stay in Letterkenny to see him better again. And Darry thought more and more about possibly marrying her… but he also thought about Wayne's question: what if she asks you to move there?

He never came up with an answer he liked and generally convinced himself she would do it for him so it didn't matter what he would do for her or not.

Ultimately, it was only a matter of months before the long distance thing ran its course. On one of his visits out to see her in her city, he held her hand as they walked down the street and she made a comment implying that, should they have a future, it would be there in Quebec.

Darry’s smile dropped and he suggested they might live in Letterkenny. Her smile dropped and the first parts of what they had started falling off. Before he knew it,  Darry launched into the hardest conversation of his life. He cried more than he was proud of, and they talked all night, but no resolution could be made between them so he returned to Letterkenny single.

Sitting in lawn chairs in the sun, he told Wayne all about it. Wayne creased his brow,  “You sure you don't want to try living in Quebec? Sounds like you two really did fit together pert near as good as yer likely ever gonna find.”

Darry lifted his eyebrows, lips parted. Wayne would sacrifice his own preferences if it meant Darry was actually happy. A pure and profound moment of love wrapped around him tight. After the initial surge of warmth, the feeling settled like a glass of coke, still fizzy but quieter.

“Actually the whole reason I know I couldn't ever move there is because I already fit better here than I ever will anywhere else. And I know that as a fact.”

Wayne smiled as he squinted over at him through the sunny beautiful day. “10-4, buddy.”

“Over and out."

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget to vote by Kudos and leave feedback, please!


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